


In the Hours Before Morning

by tablelamp



Category: Dracula (TV 1968)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Ghosts, Hope, Hurt/Comfort, Loss, Mental Coercion, Multi, Post-Canon, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-15 20:16:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16939989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tablelamp/pseuds/tablelamp
Summary: Mina can hear Seward's heart beating before he enters the room.





	In the Hours Before Morning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thisbluespirit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisbluespirit/gifts).



Mina can hear Seward's heart beating before he enters the room. He is judicious to the last, of course--always checking on his patients, checking on his friends. This will be almost too easy. She dabs at her eyes with her handkerchief, doing her best to play the part of someone grieving for her best friend. Once she would not have had to pretend. To lose Lucy not once, but twice...to lose her...

No. She will not think of that now. She has a new goal, a new purpose. She listens as the door opens.

"And how are you, my dear?" Seward asks sympathetically.

Mina keeps her eyes downcast. "As well as can be expected. How is Jonathan?" Best to retain the facade of the good little wife.

"Difficult to say," Seward says. "He is very quiet now, very still. Van Helsing says he may yet recover."

"I understand," Mina says. "He has had a shock."

She feels Seward's hand on her shoulder, warm and alive and thrumming with energy. "As have you. How do you feel?"

"Tired." That's not a lie. She takes the fatigue she feels and pushes it at Seward, pushes with her mind. Through the hand on her back, she feels him sway on his feet.

"Yes," he says, his voice weary in a way that it was not a few moments ago.

A thrill of delight spreads through Mina, and she pushes again, this time with a specific thought. _Perhaps you should sit down._

"Perhaps," Seward says, voice grown quiet, "perhaps I should sit down." He sits beside her, too exhausted now even to sit as far away from her as propriety should demand.

"You are tired," Mina says, softening her voice further so that it is soothing to his ear, pushing with her will all the time. "You must rest."

"No," Seward says groggily. He knows, now, that something is wrong, but cannot see what it is from within the fog Mina has placed in his mind. "No, there is work to be done...I must..."

"And you will," Mina says, resting a hand on his shoulder. "Later."

She can feel the moment Seward's mind yields to hers, almost as if it is a relief to do it. His body sags against the sofa, relaxed.

"Yes," he murmurs, his eyes almost closed. "Yes, later."

"Much later," she whispers, turning his head so that she can see his neck. He is ready. She summons her fangs, and--

"Mina, stop!"

Mina obeys the voice before she consciously knows who has spoken. She turns from Seward, fangs falling away, mind racing, certain that it is a familiar voice she has just heard. 

And it is, because it is Lucy's. Lucy stands in the corner of the room, as adventurous and anxious as she had been in life. She is no vampire, no wraith in a burial shroud hissing seductions. This is Lucy as she was.

"Lucy?" Mina says, for the space of one word entirely herself. Then doubt and anger find her, and she hisses, "What trap is this?"

"No trap," Lucy says, "and no trick. I have come to help you."

Mina takes a step toward Lucy, eyes and mind blazing. How dare she visit Mina now, after everything that has happened? "You have done enough."

Sadness enters Lucy's eyes. "Not quite enough. Not yet."

"You promised me. Life everlasting, you said, for both of us. And I believed you!"

"I know," Lucy says, quiet and regretful. She is always so when she knows she has done wrong, and even the familiarity of it hurts.

"You died!" Mina says, and the words are a cry of pain from a shattered heart.

"You would have lost me even if I had stayed as I was," Lucy says, her voice at once solemn and kind. "All traces of the Lucy you loved would have vanished, rewritten by another's will."

By Count Dracula's will. Mina turns to regard Seward, still asleep...the sleep of a will not his own. A creeping horror settles across Mina's shoulders. She would have done the same to Seward...erased him so utterly that he would have become her creature. Perhaps he might have been as Jonathan is, monstrous and lost. How could she have been willing to do such a thing? What has she become?

"I am with you because there is still time," Lucy says. "You are not fully changed."

Mina shakes her head, her thoughts in turmoil. She had succumbed so easily to the lure of the vampiric instincts within. "But Dr. Seward...I was ready to..."

"And if you had, the transformation would have been complete," Lucy says. "You must not feed, Mina, and you must not force your will on anyone. If you can refrain from those things, you will return to what you were."

"For how long?" Mina asks bitterly. Lucy can tell her not to feed as though the request is of no importance; Lucy no longer feels hunger or thirst, cold or heat. Lucy is beyond the realm of bodily afflictions.

"A full fortnight," Lucy says.

Mina nearly laughs at how impossible the task seems. "I shall die."

"You shall not," Lucy says fiercely. "It will be difficult, and there will be pain, but I shall be with you every time you falter."

Mina looks at Lucy, wondering what could have drawn her here from her final quiet rest. "Why?"

"To remind you who you are," Lucy says, "and what you might take from someone else if you fail."

Mina's eyes fill with tears. "I am truly sorry I failed you."

Lucy shakes her head, her own eyes appearing wet. "You could never fail me. If you believe nothing else, believe that."

Mina has no idea whether touching Lucy is possible, but she has to try. "My Lucy." She reaches out her hand.

Lucy smiles. "My Mina." Their hands catch and hold. Lucy's grasp feels very faint, as though Mina's hand is being held by a memory. Mina wonders if her hand feels the same to Lucy. 

"I shall miss you always," Mina says, voice trembling.

"And I you," Lucy says. They are both reluctant to let go, but both know they must. Mina gives Lucy's hand a gentle squeeze and then releases it. 

There is a rustle from the sofa as Seward stirs. "Lucy? My love?"

"Hello, John." Lucy's voice holds enough warmth for both Seward and Mina. Mina has often wondered how such a thing is possible.

"You are...well?" Seward seems at a bit of a loss. 

Lucy smiles. "Yes, I am."

Seward nods respectfully. "You look well." He rests a hand on Mina's shoulder, but this time what Mina takes from the touch is not the intensity of his life force. Instead, she feels the gesture as a kindness. Lucy did used to mention how kind John was.

Lucy looks wistful, as though she wishes she could join them. Mina is certain that she and Seward both wish the same thing.

"Look after each other," Lucy says, "and try to remember me. I shall never be very far away." Her voice falters on the word 'very'.

"My thoughts are always with you, my love," Seward says. There is neither bravado in his voice nor awkwardness, only truth.

Lucy smiles. "Weren't we lucky, John?" She is starting to fade now, to become more shadow and less certainty.

"We were," Seward says, his own voice trembling a bit. "For a time."

The last motion Lucy takes is to reach out her arms to both of them. Before Mina or Seward have time to rush to her, or even to reach out in kind, she is gone.

"After this visitation, I think I may have to believe some of Van Helsing's more outlandish stories," Seward says, voice steady although Mina can feel his hand trembling against her shoulder. Then he looks at her. "You did see her?"

"Oh, yes," Mina says quietly. There are not words enough in the world for her to tell Seward how that first moment was. "I saw her."

Seward pats her shoulder. "Perhaps some rest. You said you were tired, I think?"

The reminder of her thwarted attempt to control Seward brings embarrassed heat to Mina's face. "Yes."

"May I lead you to the guest room?" Seward has almost as much gentleness in him as Lucy did, in the right circumstances. Mina wonders why she never noticed this before.

"No, thank you," she says, thinking of all she has seen, all she now knows, and the path set before her. "I believe I can find my own way."


End file.
